Back to Earth

Always such a strange feeling returning home... mixed emotions on our last night in Bogota. We spent a lot of time just sitting today. Thinking. Thinking about our trip, the people we have met, all that we have experienced and learned, and all that we have waiting for us when we get home. Weaving all these together can be difficult. So much excitement about going home, but at the same time so sad to be leaving South America.

¨Trips don´t end when we return home - in a sense it´s when they usually begin.¨

Old Town Cartagena

Inside the Womb of Mamapache...

Breathe in Experience...

         Climbing to the top of Volcan Totumo, it looks like a small anthill. You can feel the energy as you get closer to the top, we had no idea what to expect. The mud here is known to have healing properties, they say you are reborn as you climb out of the womb of Mother Earth, fully cleansed by the spiritual mud-bath. According to local folklore, the volcano used to spew fire, lava, and ashes, but it was turned into mud by a local priest who believed it was the work of the devil, and ensued to banish him by sprinkling holy water into the top of the volcano. It was so crazy lowering into the warm slippery mud. As much as you try to bob down into it, you are so buoyant that you just pop up like a cork! You have to have somebody help you submerge your head by pushing you down by your shoulders. I have no idea how deep it goes, but trying to swim through it is like trying to move through a bowl of jell-o in slow motion. It was the total spa treatment, the men gave us full body massages, and after we were done, the women lead us down to the river where they dumped buckets of water over our heads like a birdie-bath, and striped our swimsuits off (to our surprise) to scrub us down and wash out our suits! We stayed for a while to float around in the mud and soak it all in, I have never felt so weightless. Days later, we are still cleaning the mud out of our ears... THIS was a once in a lifetime experience.

Mamapache

Totumo - Mud Volcano from Julia Scheri on Vimeo.

Playa Concha

After spending Valentine´s day in the local air conditioned super market food court with torn up stomaches from too much comida typico and that damn pineapple with worms in it, we decided to have a romantic getaway to a nicer beach.  We headed to Tyrona National Park and basked the day away at Playa Concha.   Thanks and much respect to captain Luis for the boat ride back into town through crazy swells along the rocky shore line.  The tiny wooden boat was at serious risk of being swallowed by a wave or sharked by one of the many protruding rocks along the way.  

Reflections: Palomino, Colombia

Back to LOCOMBIA!! A vacation from our vacation, we relax on the Caribbean beach and soak everything in. A much needed reflection time, we look back on all that we have experienced and continue to appreciate and learn from our many adventures. WE ARE SO FORTUNATE!

Deciding to completely cut ourselves off from the rest of the world for a week to reflect on our trip without distractions, we found a beautiful sanctuary called "Eco Sirena" at the base of the Sierra Nevadas de Santa Marta. We stayed in hammocks on the beach and spent lazy days writing in our journals, reading our books, laying on the beach, stretching, and playing with the beach dogs. Some days I would just sit in the shade of the palm trees and look out at the water for hours. Time does not exist here. We awoke with the first rays of sun in the morning and walked along the beach in search of seashells; it was paradise.

The "town" of Palomino was about a 20 minute walk from the beach and we would walk there to buy some vegetables and water. It was a very poor town in the middle of nowhere, and only stretched for about a kilometer. Tribal people would come into town for some supplies but then head back to the mountains - most people seemed to keep to themselves in this area. The kids would run down the road barefoot spinning bike tires with sticks, or help their family hammer palm fronds to the roof. Sometimes we would find GIANT snakes (boas) with their heads smashed in with rocks on the side of the road... it was a little rugged in town so we mostly stayed in our little paradise on the beach.

We met some amazing people from all around the world and shared travel stories, it was so inspiring! Sometimes in the evening we would get together for a little pow-wow on the beach and dance around the fire!

"Without experience, there is little wisdom..."

The pelicans would dive in the mornings, the bats would swoop in the evenings, and the chickens would cluck all day long. With every step down a trail, tiny lizards would scurry in every direction, and giant iguanas and red-tailed squirrels would run up the palm trees. We would watch the fishermen take their tiny wooden boats into the crashing waves in the mornings, and come back with buckets full of fresh fish and lobsters in the afternoons. The local boys would walk up and down the beach with giant machetes, followed by a pack of wild beach dogs.

Of course there is always the cost of paradise...Being exposed to the great outdoors for a week we were ready to head to an actual hostel closer to town with an actual BED to sleep in. We are pretty bug bitten and it took quite a few showers to get the sand out of our ears. We are now buying fruit at the grocery store after a bad experience with a worm infested pineapple and severe stomach aches, but we are doing much better now! I think we have gotten all the bugs out of our bags (we don´t want to bring those nasty poisonous furry caterpillars with bad intentions home with us..) Ahhhh our last week of travel now, still soaking up the sun and every experience we can!

Watch for falling coconuts...

Checking out.....

www.ecosirena.com

Chivay, Peru

The end of a chapter....

 

Our last full day spent in Peru, we bus it from Arequipa to the village of Chivay in the mouth of Colca Canyon. Our driver had the bus horn full blast while pushing through a sea of llamas in the middle of the road. We pass volcanoes and flamingos, such strange combinations!

We ride bikes around the village all day, and then out to visit some ruins and thermal baths outside of town.
It was a perfect day.
···········
Goodbye Peru, you will be missed. I will never forget all that I have learned....

Adios Peru

Our time in Peru is coming to an end.  The last leg spent in the southern section included many amazing locations in a very short amount of time.  Just traveling around getting to the desintations we´ve been to gave us the chance to see an amazingly diverse landscape.  Cusco, Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu, Puno (Lake Titicaca), Arequipa, Colca Canyon are some of the amazing destinations we have been to in the past 12 days since leaving the surrounding area of Huaraz in the Peruvian Andes.  It´s been truly amazing to see the diversity of the landscape in Peru.  From the Amazon, to the Andes mountains, through the southern coast, deserts with incredible sand dunes, and ending in the temperate highlands surrounding Cusco and Arequipa.

Exploring the ruins located out side of Chivay in the Colca Canyon, the second deepest in the world

Making friends in Chivay, note the similar expressions.  This llama was only three days old and so tired, Julia was the same from the many overnight bus rides.

 In the past 12 days we´ve spent around 67 hours on buses (mostly overnight) in Southern Peru.  While some buses weren´t exactly ideal in terms of comfort, these times offered a more rich experience and perspective into the rural Peruvian way of life.  Sometimes a little bit of a sacrifice (comfort) works in our favor when looking back.  On another note, I can´t exactly provide an accurate count of how many Frac bars where consumed in Peru.  Maybe its a good thing you cant find them in Colombia...

Sing song

Uros Women Song from Julia Scheri on Vimeo.

Walking on Water

A small procession that went by the square around 6am

Last minute Titicaca pit-stop! Off an all night bus from Cusco, we arrive in Puno around 5 am, splash some water on our faces, stash our bags at the bus station, and head to the Plaza De Las Armas. Today is the ¨Festival de La Virgen de La Candelaria¨, the biggest celebration all year in Puno. It is a big cultural event, with music, dancing and lots of parties. It combines different cultures from modern Peruvians, to Quechua, Aymara and other indigenous cultures of the Andean Highlands. Unfortunately, the city itslef was a bit sketchy, and we were on a serious time schedule. Because we just threw this stop in last minute, we only had about 7 hours to see Lake Titicaca and the floating Islands before our next bus continuing on to Arequipa! We fit A LOT in that day... We ate breakfast in the square and watched people bussle around the cathedral with flower petals, roses, and decorations for the celebration. We sat with all the cute little old Peruvian men on the park benches and watched them move the church pews, the altar, and wedding chairs out in front of the church (I didn´t know you could do that!) and they decorated a procession isle with huge banners and rich pieces of material. A few little processions went by and a lot of fireworks that were more like smoky gunshots. I think we were the only tourists around at that hour of the morning...

Around 8:30 am we went down to the docks where we jumped on a boat for a scenic tour of the lake.  We watched Puno dissappear in the distance

We arrived on the Island of Uros where the local people welcome us with brightly colored clothing and gold smiles. There are 60 different islands out here, all man-made by chunks of earth and floating reeds. It is so crazy that they live out here! I still can´t believe it, you can feel a slight sway (because you´re technically FLOATING) and your feet sink into the reeds that make up the ground. It just looks like straw everywhere! I eye their coooking pots outside their houses and just wonder how they don´t light their whole island on fire? Looks extremely flammable. The people of the island do a few little demonstrations on how they built the island, and a little about their history. Their people originally moved onto the lake in boats to avoid fighting by other tribes on land, the man-made island idea came along a little later.

Then we met Amelia. She was such a kind lady that invited us into her home and showed us how her and her family lived on the island. Her daughter is pictured above in front of her house, Amelia is shown below.

Amelia showed us a small embroidered tapestry she had worked on for an entire month that depicted the Pachamama (mother earth), the puma which represents the shape of the lake, the Andean creator, a ceremonial god, representations of water, fire, and lots of fish (food)! We fell in love! Of course we had to buy it, so I guess we technically payed her a month´s income, which is NUTS! They live off of nothing!

Here is Amelia sitting in front of her house with all of her hand-crafted goods. The tapestry we bought is right in front of her! We were so happy to be able to support her a little!

Chris Chewing on some reeds, this is like a fruit to them!

Titicaca was amazing, we would have loved to see the Bolivia side as well but the Lake is 174 km long! The Peruvians argue that 60% of the Lake belongs to Peru, and 40% belongs to Bolivia; this means the ¨Titi¨ for Peru, and the ¨Caca¨ for Bolivia. Of course they say the opposite in Bolivia. The weather was perfect, crisp air from the high altitude and beautiful sunshine - the thunder clouds stayed in the distance.

We were back on another 7 hour bus by 1pm...a day well done. This bus however was a local bus, and although it was very cheap, there were a few near riots we didn´t exactly want to be a part of. People were screaming and pounding on the driver´s door demanding faster driving, unplanned stops, or to put the television on. Always something. But an experience it was! Now we are safe in Arequipa and plan on going out to the village of Chivay tomorrow! BOOM BOOM BOOM, needless to say, we are sleeping well, when we have the chance.